alkeddie

alkeddie, 5 days ago

“We’ve been hearing about precision strikes and about reports that some of the UNRWA or U.N. installations have been used by Palestinian armed groups. We hear about this every time a strike kills scores of civilians in or near our buildings.”

#Ceasefire #Gaza #genocide #WarCrimes #Palestine

alkeddie, 5 days ago

“Since the beginning of this war, Gazans have been issued what the Israeli government calls evacuation orders. In reality, these are orders for forced displacement.”

#Ceasefire #CeasefireNow #Gaza #genocide #GazaGenocide #WarCrimes #Palestine #FreePalestine

Then, as of the 6th of May, the Israeli government decided on a land, ground invasion of Rafah, therefore pushing people to move again. Many of them had nowhere left to go. The tents became very, very rare in Rafah. No one had personal belongings. But mostly, there was nowhere safe, because strikes continues, aerial bombings continued. So, there was nowhere safe. There still is nowhere safe. And what happened to these people in the tents is apocalyptic, like my colleagues from MSF say, and a reminder that nowhere is safe in Gaza

alkeddie, 5 days ago

“Land crossings are the safest and the fastest ways to get aid into the Gaza Strip. We’ve all been discussing for the longest time how many trucks a day have gone in. I want to say that the last month has been awful. Most of the days in May have seen zero trucks going in for the UN”

UNRWA is the largest humanitarian operation. We also cooperate very closely with other U.N. agencies, particularly the World Food Programme, on distributing food. The distribution of food, of wheat flour, of clean drinking water has not stopped since the beginning of the war, despite extremely challenging humanitarian circumstances, that include very, very patchy opening of the crossings, the land crossings, whether it’s Rafah from the Egyptian side or Karem Abu Salem, Kerem Shalom, from the side of Israel. Land crossings are the safest and the fastest ways to get aid into the Gaza Strip. We’ve all been discussing for the longest time how many trucks a day have gone in. I want to say that the last month has been awful. Most of the days in May have seen zero trucks going in for the U.N., and on the best day, we’ve seen 77 trucks — 77 trucks with food, nonfood, mattresses, tents, clean water, medicines, medical supplies for a population of nearly 2 million people, or a bit over 2 million
So, yes, UNRWA has long warned from malnutrition and an imminent famine. UNICEF just recently said that nine out of 10 children in Gaza fall way below their needed calorie intake daily. And now with the scorching heat of nearly 90 degrees Fahrenheit in Gaza, lack of clean drinking water, we have started to see infants dying of dehydration.

alkeddie, 5 days ago

“A ceasefire is what everyone in Gaza needs right now, just to take a breath and have some respite. But in addition to the ceasefire, there has to be a much increased flow of humanitarian assistance going in”

#Ceasefire #CeasefireNow #Gaza #genocide #WarCrimes #Palestine #FreePalestine

alkeddie, 5 days ago

“I would see it and still get surprised every single time, that how could this soldier just shoot me? We are so dehumanized, to the point where they can come and they can exterminate you, because, to them, you’re nothing but a rat.”
#Ceasefire #Gaza #genocide #WarCrimes #Palestine #FreePalestine
2/7

AMIRA HASS: So, how does the world completely turn a blind eye to the Israeli continuous violence and says Israel is the victim? This is the big — this is the big question. ASHIRA DARWISH: I would see it and still get surprised every single time, that how could this soldier just shoot me? We are so dehumanized, to the point where they can come and they can exterminate you, because, to them, you’re nothing but a rat. DR. GABOR MATÉ: I’m not pro-Palestinian, but I’m pro-truth. And the truth is, the Palestinians have been oppressed and suppressed and murdered and controlled and dispossessed for decades. That’s just the truth. There’s no post-traumatic stress disorder here, because the trauma is never post.
ASHIRA DARWISH: Your brother and your sister being in chains will not make this experience on Earth acceptable. Your chains will be still held by my chains. And unless I am free, you won’t be free.

alkeddie, 5 days ago

“What’s happening in Palestine is devastating, and what’s happening in the West Bank and Gaza has been going on for 75 years. What happened to the journalists is not something new. This happens every single day.”

#Ceasefire #Gaza #genocide #Palestine #FreePalestine
3/7

Every day on this day, for a Jerusalemite like me, I would walk through the streets of Jerusalem just to say that “we are here, and this is our right to be here.” And we get attacked, and we get fought back, and we have the army supporting these settlers as they march in our streets attacking us. And we basically get put on lockdown. We’re not allowed to walk in our streets. The shops are all closed. It’s just basic terror on this day in Jerusalem. But to be honest, it has been like this since before 7 October. Jerusalem has become a city of ghosts. Armed soldiers have closed down the main entrance of Damascus Gate. Our streets have become death traps. Going to Al-Aqsa Mosque is one of the most spiritual, but also, for me — as a child, I grew up next to Al-Aqsa Mosque — it’s my playground. Not being able to walk there, being — every time that we walk, we’re always in fear of soldiers that are walking, and they’re just waiting for you just to make a smile at some point, just to be caug

alkeddie, 5 days ago

“And that was my first experience of being held down and attacked by the soldiers. And I was on the floor, and the cameras were flashing. And they were beating me with sticks on my knees, trying to break my knees… And I was only 16”

#Ceasefire #Gaza #genocide #Palestine #FreePalestine
4/7

alkeddie, 5 days ago

“this whole Western theory about balanced reporting. If you’re being balanced in a situation of a genocide, then you’re complicit in genocide. There’s no white and black in this.”

#Ceasefire #CeasefireNow #Gaza #genocide #GazaGenocide #WarCrimes #Palestine #FreePalestine
5/7

alkeddie, 5 days ago

“There was a study done in 2005 reporting many studies done on the mental health of Palestinian children. And a large percentage of them, long before Hamas became the ruling government in Gaza, a large percentage of Palestinian & Gazan children were suffering symptoms of PTSD”
6/7

Well, it wasn’t the only symptom that I had. And if you look at the studies of Palestinian children published in 2005, again, long before Hamas took over — if anybody thinks history began on October the 7th, they should read that study in the journal of World Psychiatry. The most prevalent childhood exposure of traumas were witnessing funerals, witnessing shooting, seeing injured or dead strangers or a family member being killed or injured. And a large percentage of these kids had PTSD symptoms. This is 20 years ago in Palestine, in the West Bank and especially in Gaza. So, now that it’s the 80th anniversary of D-Day, which was the beginning, at least on the Western Front, of the defeat of the Nazi empire, how can we not relate that to what’s going on right now, when these children in Gaza are witnessing all the things that I just described that people in Gaza have been witnessing for decades, and that I myself experienced as an infant? And the resonance is just too powerful.

alkeddie, 5 days ago

“And what little could I do to help them? At least what I could do, and what this film does, and what your program does so consistently, is to witness, is to witness so they don’t feel so alone, so Ashira doesn’t have to feel so alone with her experience.”

#Gaza #genocide #Palestine
7/7

[Now, in the West Bank, which is my third visit there, two years ago, to work with these women, many of them who had been tortured in Israeli jails and have had all the typical symptoms of what we call post-traumatic stress disorder. But what I can tell you is that the atmosphere in the West Bank two years ago, when I was there, was much heavier than even when I had been there for the first time during the First Intifada. At that time, in 1992, when I first visited, there was still an air of hope. The world seemed to be paying attention to the Palestinian cause at that time. There was a fair bit of sympathy internationally for the legitimate rights of the Palestinians. Two years ago, there was despondence. People felt alone, abandoned. The pressure of the occupation, the intensity of the — there’s hardly any family whose members had not been jailed at one time or another. There was the intensity of the occupation, the checkpoints, the surveillance, that terrible wall that you can see i
At the same time, I had to be very impressed with the resilience, the ongoing willingness to endure amongst Palestinians. And I actually also should mention here the sympathetic and brave Israelis who stand up to all that, Amira Hass being one of them. And some of them helped to organize my visit, as well. So, it’s not a question of, you know, Jews versus Arabs or Palestinians versus Israelis. It’s a question of a system that has imposed itself like a monster, suppressing and squeezing the life out of Palestinian national, cultural and personal life. And that’s what I saw when I was there two years ago.
And the women I was working with, what was interesting is the commonest symptoms, you might say, was a sense of guilt that they hadn’t been strong enough to resist, that they hadn’t rescued their friends. It’s a typical trauma response that these things, it’s all my fault. But it was, you know, as somebody who works with trauma, to witness all this on such a massive scale, even for me, was shocking. And what little could I do to help them? At least what I could do, and what this film does, and what your program does so consistently, is to witness, is to witness so they don’t feel so alone, so Ashira doesn’t have to feel so alone with her experience

alkeddie, 5 days ago

‘During Wednesday’s march Israelis were heard chanting “Death to Arabs” and “May your village burn.”

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/6/6/headlines/far_right_israeli_nationalists_attack_palestinian_journalists_in_east_jerusalem_on_naksa_day

#Ceasefire #CeasefireNow #Gaza #genocide #GazaGenocide #WarCrimes #Palestine #FreePalestine

alkeddie, 5 days ago

‘One whistleblower shared photographs that showed Palestinians being strapped down, blindfolded and held in diapers at the site. Some prisoners had limbs amputated due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing.’

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/6/6/headlines/israel_to_shut_down_sde_teiman_prison_where_detained_gazans_have_been_tortured

#Gaza #genocide #GazaGenocide #WarCrimes #Palestine

alkeddie, 5 days ago

Viva España! 🇪🇸

‘Spain has announced plans to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Spain joins other countries, including Colombia, Mexico, Egypt and Turkey, who have requested to join South Africa’s case’

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/6/6/headlines/spain_is_latest_country_to_join_south_africas_genocide_case_against_israel_at_world_court

#Gaza

alkeddie, 6 days ago

“Were the Israelis using American weapons against civilians in Gaza?”

Harrison Mann: “I can say almost certainly yes.”

Jim Axelrod: “But were they doing so intentionally?”

Harrison Mann: “I don’t know how you kill 35,000 civilians by accident.”

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/6/5/headlines/us_army_officer_who_resigned_over_gaza_speaks_out
#Gaza #genocide #WarCrimes